The Beginning
by Jessi Scott
Summary: Jessi is a half-vampire trying to live a normal life. That is all changed when two brothers, Derek and Sam, come along and killings start. Jessi must dicide whether to trust the dark, attractive Derek Torren to find the killer, or has she already? R&R plz


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The Beginning

6/25/2009

Jessie Scott

"Jessie, Andi, Taylor! I have the latest and greatest news for you!" Natilie called from across the lunchroom to us. Considering the fact that we were sitting all of the way on the other side of the lunchroom in our usual corner, her voice was really loud. So every head in the room turned to look at her and then over at us.

"When will she leave us alone?" Andi asked, blushing and looking down at the empty lunch table in front of her.

"As long as you stay friends with me and she keeps dogging me you'll never have a moment's peace," I said sadly, turning my back on the staring eyes. Natilie was on the highschool news team. Actually, she was the president of the news team. And she was looking for a way to get to better, higher places, even if that meant leeching off of other people to do it. What was worse was that I had recently started working at the Daily Press as a photojournalist and that she decided that I was a wrung on her step ladder. She acted like we were the best of friends – even though I knew she really hated me because I got the job at the Paper over her - and I couldn't afford that. Being too close to people was a bad thing for me. It was dangerous to me and my family.

"Jess, if she keeps this up she's going to find out something," Taylor said on my other side. Andi and Taylor were the only ones who knew about my secret in the human world. They were my closest friends and I knew I could trust them without a doubt.

"You guys are more concerned about it than I am," I said, smiling.

"Well it's not just your secret anyways," Andi said. "It would be a risk to the whole community of va—"

"I got details and interviews with the new kids!" Natalie came over in a rush, squealing. She sat opposite us on the table.

Andi shut her mouth and looked at Natalie with irritation, which of course Natalie didn't notice. Andi's reactions were almost non-existent when other people were around. But I had gotten used to reading her. That's why, when she looked at me I could tell that she was saying "That was close."

And yeah, it was. But there wasn't really anything to worry about. We talked about mythical creatures all of the time anyway, we had since we were little.

Natilie went on as if she hadn't seen the exchange. "I talked to the news board and they wanted me to ask you if you could write the story and take the pictures ever since you're a professional. We want it to be a big thing because we don't get very many new kids often."

I sighed. I had already told the board that I didn't want to be wrapped up in their little circle. They had so many things that involved group work and a lot of time together. And being in a room with ten half time reporters that tended to notice things with a big secret was so not the way to go. "I already told you guys th—"

"I know what you said," she interrupted. "But it's just this one little thing and it's so important."

A little thing, yet it is important. People confused me sometimes. Not my best friends of course but humans were so different to talk to than my family of sorts. She was giving me her best puppy dog face and I sighed. "Fine, where do I need to do this?" I asked blandly.

She hopped up and clapped her hands together in a very good imitation of a vain valley girl. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said excitedly. "This means so much! It is going to be so great! They are in the office right now and in five minutes the principal will let us go in and talk to them. I will be asking the questions and you will write them down and take notes and pictures and then you can write the story. Remember, five minutes!" she said and turned and walked away.

I was left staring at a blank spot on the wall across from me. "Well," I sighed. "Looks like I had better go get my notebook and camera," I said standing up.

"You should make her pay you for it," Taylor called to my back as I walked through the lunchroom. I grinned. That was a good idea. I'd just tell her that she owed me for the pictures because it was like any other normal job for me. She'd have to buy my pictures just like everyone else would.

I walked down the hall thinking about ways I could do things for the school paper and get paid, but not have to actually be in their little club. It would be difficult for me to go to their little lunches because I wasn't supposed to eat more than one human meal a week. It was bad for my metabolism. I sighed again for what had to be the hundredth time that day. Being half vampire was tough. I had to balance my human half and keep up the food, but my vampire half was more dominant and I had to drink blood just like any normal vamp. But I was different in other ways than them too. I couldn't go out into the sun without a silver talisman—mine was a ring-- on or I would die, rather than a normal vampire would have to wear a sapphire stone. And it hurt my eyes more. I always had to wear sunglasses outside.

There were a lot of rumors out there that weren't true though. Like, do vampires sleep in coffins? No. Most vampires sleep submerged in water. Why? I have no idea. Because it was comfortable I guessed. I wouldn't know because I slept in a bed. Do vampires hate garlic? Well, it sucks because of our strong senses. The smell, along with the smell of onions, burns our noses. But we learn to deal with it. Does Holy Water repel vampires? No. It's just water. It has the same elemental compound all around. No big difference. What did repel vampires? I'll bet you'll be surprised by this. Lemons. They can't stand lemons. I, personally, think lemonade is the best drink next to blood. Oh, and there's another thing. Vampires can't cross into a human's threshold without being invited in. But once asked into that residence they can go in any time. That one applied to me. And it was annoying. I felt like an idiot asking Taylor's mom if I could come in the first time I went to her house for a sleep over. I remember that night all too well. It was the night I told them about me being a half vampire. I remember expecting them to hate me or be scared. Instead, Taylor wanted to check out my fangs more closely and Andi just thought it was cool. They had both loved anything different and I remember Andi told me that she had loved vampires since she was little, even though she thought they didn't exist.

Suddenly my locker slammed shut and made me jump. Why hadn't I been paying attention to my surroundings? Things like that could get me killed in the real world. I looked to see who had shut my locker. "Kevin," I said evenly. "I'm not in the mood to put up with your hairball of an attitude today."

Kevin Bangs was a werewolf. The only one in our whole school since Ryan Ernst, my contact at the morgue, graduated. He was the leading running back on the football team, about 5' 11 ½", had light brown hair and forest green eyes. Besides being tall he was muscular. There wasn't a girl in school who wouldn't want to go out with him. Me included. We dated off and on the past four years, but he had ticked me off about a month ago and I was still kind of mad at him.

"Aw Jess you're not still mad about the poem are you?" he asked, seeming actually sincere.

"Don't remind me," I said, blushing. He had wrote a poem in Literacy class about me and read it in front of the class. I about died!

"But it described you so well," he went on. "It was dead on about your long, curly brown hair and your icy blue eyes."

I pulled my locker back open and gave him a shut-up look from behind it. "I don't want to hear about it," I said. It had been nice, and had actually described me well. He even mentioned the gold circles I got in my eyes in the summer time. But he knew how I couldn't have attention drawn to me. "People followed me around for almost a month. Do you know how close Jazzmine came to seeing me jump the stairs? She was furious with me and I barely know her." My voice was low, but then again I didn't yell when I was mad. The tone in my voice was enough for him to tell that I was mad.

"I said I was sorry and I even got you roses," he said, exasperated. "What more does a woman need?"

"You forgot the chocolate," I said, closing my locker after I had my camera in hand. "And why are you pleading with me? You have a girlfriend, remember?" Kevin wasn't the kind of guy that skipped in and out of relationships like a stone skipping over water. He was either in a good relationship or he wasn't dating anyone.

He looked guilty. "I didn't want to just drop you like a box of rocks," he said.

I watched him for a moment. I really had liked him. But dating right now wasn't an option. Even though he was part of our world, I just couldn't with my new job. I had to be able to be anywhere at a moment's notice and I wouldn't want to just bail on a date. "Thank you," I said finally. "Your forgiven you big ball of fur. Now I have to go do a story on the new kids. Bye," I gave him a smile before I turned around and walked towards the main office.

I was running a bit late now because of my chat with Kev, but Natilie wouldn't care. At least she better not. I had offered to do the job but she had to beg to get me to do it. I was allowed to have a lot of slack because of that. Nonetheless I walked a little faster to the office than normal pace. I met Natalie outside the door.

"Your late," she said flatly.

"You didn't have to hire me," I shrugged.

"Hire? What do you mean?"

"Oh, yeah I forgot to tell you. I usually charge for the story depending on what I have to go through to get it. But I am going to cut off the price for the story and just have you pay for the pictures." I informed her and then walked into the office leaving her standing there looking after me. I looked at the two boys that were sitting in the chairs and stopped suddenly. There went my money for the job.

"Jess, this is Sam and Derek Torren," Natalie said in a voice that sounded like she was trying to be hot.

I could see why. She was after all if the cute guys in the school and these two sure fit in that category. The first one, Sam, had dirty blonde hair and a light tan under an old basketball logoed t-shirt and blue jeans. His eyes were a lapis luzi blue and he had a sweet smile. He was about 5'7" and he looked like the average guy that worked out lightly every day. Derek could have been the exact opposite of his brother. He had jet black hair and eyes to match. He was about 5'10" and looked like he took exercise more seriously than his brother. He could give Kevin a run for is money on the football team, and for the girls in school too. He was wearing an old black leather jacket, a black t-shirt under that and blue jeans with boots. Both boys were drop dead gorgeous but in different ways. Sam looked like he had the good guy reputation. Not like a nerd, far from it, but probably an A, B student and got along well with people. Charisma in its best form. Derek, on the other hand, screamed danger. He looked strong and totally badass. One of the "cool guys."

Natalie had continued to talk while I looked over our new students. "Okay so we can take both of your pictures toge—"

"Actually Natalie," I said hastily, putting my hand over her mouth to shut her up. "My camera is dead. So there won't be any pictures on this interview."

"Well I can go get one of ours," she said around my hand.

"No that's okay," I shook my head making my curls bounce. "Everyone in school will see them for the rest of the year they don't need their pictures taken."

"Okay," she said hesitantly. But then she perked up again. "Then we can just start with the questions."

I nodded and she started out with questions about where they moved from and what grade they were in. Those were important questions that I actually wrote down. When she asked about favorite animal/color/weather/cars I didn't really pay attention. I was just happy that I had gotten them out of that situation without them having to seem suspicious. That was the last thing they needed. Because vampires don't show up on film. Yeah, these two were vampires. How did I know that, you ask? Good question. I could see their auras. No that wasn't a vampire power. My mother is a psychic. She used to do reading to help out people when she was human. Then I came along and my father turned her into a vampire. Anyway, I had gained some of her psychic ability and I could sense people's auras. Each person had a different one, yes. But so did each race. They fell into categories. Human's aura was more of a smell than sight. Werewolves were a smell _and_ a kind of glow around them. And vampires were light, a physical light that seemed to hover around them. I saw immediately that these two were vamps. But could they tell I was even a half one? I doubted it.

There was a few ways that you could figure out what a vampires eating habits were. Vampires that drank human blood were stronger than vampires that drank animal blood. But vampires that drank a lot of human blood and had killed those humans were the strongest. Not just in physical strength, but in Powers. They had more "stamina" in their Power arsenal. I could see how much power a vamp had in their aura. Those that drank animal blood and didn't kill the animal were the weakest. They didn't take any life force at all because animal blood held very little life force. Their aura light was weak. The vamps that did kill the animal were taking the life force and would get a little energy and their aura was like a dyeing glow stick. Vampires that drank human blood were stronger because human's blood carried life force in it and their aura was like a candle flame. But vampires that killed humans and drank their blood were the ultimate. Their aura was like a light bulb. They were also extremely powerful, especially the more they killed. Vampires that took the advantage during the wars were usually the strongest.

Personally, my diet consisted of drinking human blood. I didn't kill people for their life force; they were still part of my heritage. I decided that when I got older and decided to stop aging –most vampires stayed the same age that they were when they turned but I was a special case, I could choose when I wanted to stop aging and be stuck there forever—that I would most likely help out bounty hunters and kill dangerous people and stuff like that. But for the time being I had a normal amount of energy.

How did I walk around looking at vamps aura without getting light spots in my vision? Believe it or not, I actually used to when I was little. But then I learned to control my visions. My physical vision was seeing people and only people. My psychic vision was nothing but the aura. They used to overlap, but I learned to push back the psychic vision unless I wanted it there.

"… your favorite food?" Natalie asked.

This I actually looked up to. Vampires didn't eat food like I could. This should be entertaining.

"Probably Lasagna," Sam answered. Derek shrugged and said that he didn't have one, but I saw a slight grin before he answered and Sam lightning fast smacked him upside the head. Natalie didn't see a thing.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I got the job at the paper over Natalie. I saw things other people couldn't thanks to the vampire genes. Not that she wasn't observant. I would give her that. But it was physically impossible for human eyes to keep up with something that could move at almost light speed.

Natalie stopped with her interview that sounded more like for interrogation of a celebrity. "Did you get all of that Jess?" she asked looking at my notes.

"Uh, what? Oh, yeah, sorry. Yes I got everything important," I made a little emphasis on _important._ There was another thing that differentiated Natalie and I. She went for _every little detail._ I went for the important details. But it was her idea to ask all of the questions. I just hoped that these two guys didn't think we were _all _creeps that liked to know everything about everyone.

"Oh, I almost forgot the most important one!" she said, turning back to the brothers. "What is your biggest secret?"

Sam's face was blank and he managed to look slightly puzzled. Derek had the hint of a sly grin on his face and a mischievous look in his eyes. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Natalie I have more than enough for a story," I said and closed my notebook and put my pen in the back pocket of my jeans. "Thank you for your time," I said to the brothers, holding out a hand.

I saw a look of confusion as they inhaled a little too deeply for a normal breath when they shook my hand. They could smell that I wasn't like a normal human. Well I would just let them figure that out on their own. It wasn't my concern weather they knew what I was or not. I turned around and walked past Natalie who was telling me what to do with the setup of the story.

"I want it to be a whole page and have a side column that had all of the 'favorite' questions that I asked them--" she was saying. I only half paid half attention to her. I was thinking of some ways that I could tease these new guys about them being vampires without even hinting anything to the humans. The 'favorite' answers would be good. Their favorite season was the fall which had a lack of sunlight. Their favorite food would be lasagna with garlic as a joke about what Sam said. Yeah, that would be funny. I already wanted to see their faces when they read it.

"Jess, do you got all that?" Natalie asked as she stopped at her locker.

I continued down the hall and nodded. "You'll have your story tomorrow," I assured her. That is if you could really call it a story. Interviews for a couple of new kids that turned out to be vampires weren't that big of a deal unless people knew about the vampire part. And they didn't, so we were back to a boring, pointless story.

The rest of my day was relatively normal--if you skipped over the fact that Derek was in three of my classes and the cheerleaders were already fighting over him. Sam had two classes with me and Derek was in one of those and Andi was in all of them because we had all the same classes together. She was going to be thrilled about this. There were two new _complete_ vampires coming to our little town. They weren't tainted by human blood like I was.

I thought about this as I drove my old truck home. _Untainted by human blood._ They didn't know how lucky they were. Being half human I had to drink blood and eat human food to stay alive. And because my vampire side was dominant I didn't like eating human food, so when I did it wasn't particularly pleasant. And they could use their Powers aswell. It would be so amazing to be able to us my Power. I had so much energy stored up inside of me that it would take a while to run it out even if I was doing things that took a lot of energy to do. Like fly for one. That would be amazing.

I thought about the energy that I saw in Derek and Sam's auras today. Sam had energy. He would be able to do the usual things that vampires could do like have speed and strength, have mind connections, ect. He seemed to be the usual kind of vamp that lived on the high side but was a good guy because he didn't nearly kill the humans he fed on. But Derek's aura was different. It was brighter, stronger than his brother's. He had killed humans before when he fed, but it was some time ago now, the glow was slightly dimmer than what it would have been if he had killed recently. I was betting that he all but drained his victims but still let them live. Barely, but they would still be alive. And in doing so, Derek would take more life force because he was starting to kill them.

This said a lot about their personalities. Sam's way of living told me that he wasn't the goodie-two-shoes kind of guy. He probably preferred going around to parks at night and played with some pretty joggers before he fed on them and left them no memory of anything that happened the next morning. Derek's feeding habits probably had him feeding off of guys from the bar too drunk to put up a fight and extremely pretty girls as desert.

Of course I couldn't really say anything agenst that. When I was feeling bored and wanted a fresh snack and not our bagged blood from the morgue I tapped into a vein of a guy that wouldn't remember a thing in the morning.

I hopped lightly out of my truck and smiled at the sound of gravel crunch under my feet. It was nice to have all of the snow finally melted away. I got sick of the cold weather when it went below zero degrees day after day. I decided that today would be a nice day for a walk and I threw my bag in my house before I took off.

We lived in a big farmhouse about thirty miles out of town that had a hundred acres around it. No one around here wanted it because most of the land was part of the forest even though it had the Yampa River running through it. My parents decided to buy up on it because we didn't have any horses or farm animals, only a dog that loved me to death named Jake. He was a blue healer and very friendly, which made for a good vampire family pet because most animals didn't like vamps.

Speaking of Jake, I thought. Here he came running out of the wall of trees about a hundred yards off, soaking wet. I could smell the wet dog smell from here and I wrinkled my nose. He must have been in the river again.

"Hey boy," I said when he came into earshot. He picked up the speed when he heard me and about ran me flat over. Then he shook and water went flying.

I covered my face and waited until he was done. Then I bent down on one knee and scratched him behind the ears. "Didn't I tell you not to play in the river?" I asked sternly. Jake just licked my face. I gave him a look and he stopped. That's what I loved about that dog. He actually listened and could understand me. "Now get back to the house and dry off before Mom finds out and gets mad," I warned him and he shot off like a bullet.

I smiled after him and then continued on my walk. Jake wasn't just the family pet, he was like the little brother. And what was even more amazing, that dog wasn't just a normal dog. My dad found him in his first few years of being a vamp and that was a really long time ago. And the cool thing was; Jake hadn't aged at all. My mom said it was a miracle and that he was literally made for a vampire family. My dad said that he had to be a creature from our realm, but he'd never heard of this kind of animal. I said that he was my best friend for life and I didn't care what he was. I took him with me just about everywhere too, and he actually got mad at me if I was gone for too long without him.

I stepped through the gap in the pine fence that we had separating the forest and our house into a worn footpath. The smell of pine and oak surrounded me as I took a couple of steps in and I took off my sunglasses now that I was under the shade of the trees. There were little gaps in the canopy of leaves and needles above me where the sun's rays streamed through that I could actually look at.

I smiled at nothing in general. I was just happy that I wasn't totally cut off from the sun. I had always wondered what the school field would look like without having to wear my sunglasses, or what it would be like to go out to the reservoir and go water skiing or tubing with Andi and Taylor without worrying about my sunglasses falling off.

I kicked a piece of bark that was in the path as my thoughts went back to how lucky the full vamps were. They didn't have to worry about sunburns like I did, even with my ring on. They didn't have to eat human food to keep their metabolism in balance. They could use their Powers, and they didn't have their human side slowing them down in general.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked over to the old rope swing that me and my gang used to play on when we were kids. I laughed at the memories of that old thing. One time all seven of us --Taylor, Andi, Kyleen, Dakota, Michaela, Molly, and I—all managed to get on it all at once and the branch broke on us. We all fell on top of one another and were laughing our heads off. My dad had to come out and tie the rope to another –and thicker—branch.

Those were the good old days. Back when we didn't have anything to worry about like school, or boys, or drama. We were just chill with life. That made me think about the upsides to being half human. I didn't have to worry about controlling my Powers around humans as a kid because I didn't have any. I wasn't predatory to human senses, so I got along with other kids well. And I could have human friends because I aged, for the time being, at least. Along with that I didn't have to skip around and move a lot which was good because I could have a long term—

BUZZ BUZZ

Speaking of jobs, I thought as I pulled out my cell phone. It was Laura, my editor at the Daily Press. That was odd. She only called if there was new information on a story that I was writing.

I flipped open my Envy2 and it automatically went on speakerphone. "Hello?"

"Jess you have to get to the Bank of Colorado ASAP," Laura's voice came out loud on the speaker.

"Is this for a new story?" I asked. I wasn't working on anything right now.

"Yes and its big. I want you here five minutes ago, got it?"

"Okay, what is it on?" Probably just drama about the mayor's daughter dating the Bank's owner again. But wait a second. What was that in the background? "Are those sirens in the background?"

"You'll see when you get here. Hurry." Click.

Well that was interesting. What would sirens be doing at the Bank? Was it a robbery? Or maybe there was just a police car passing by at the time. Those were both possible conclusions. Either way I'd find out sooner the faster I got there.

I flipped my phone shut and ran full vamp speed to my truck. Good thing this wasn't an old engine of I'd be ticked. I needed speed more often than not and the old engine wasn't going to cut it. We'd replaced it last year and now it was just perfect. It had a faded blue paint job, tinted windows, and a black interior. I loved it.

I whistled for Jake to get out here and threw open the passenger door while I started the truck. He came running out of the back yard –now mostly dried off- and jumped in without hesitation. I shut the door and threw the truck in reverse and off we went.

I was surprised how packed the area around the bank was. There were police cars and ambulances and fire trucks parked along the whole block. There wouldn't be ambulances at a robbery scene, what was going on?

"Okay outta' my way!" I called, pushing through a mob of people that were lined up along the street. There was police tape keeping the pedestrians across the streets and I pushed through them and stepped across the line and ran towards Laura. "Laura, what's going o— " I stopped short and barely avoided running smack into someone.

"The police tape is put up for a reason young lady," a stern voice said above me and I felt a hand close around my upper arm. I looked up with irritation and was surprised that I didn't recognize the face of the cop that had a hold on me.

"Excuse me," I said, irritated. With my figure, no one had ever mistaken me for being young. "But I am with the news and if Laura can be here then so can I."

"You hardly look old enough to be a senior, let alone work for the Press," he snipped and tried to jerk me back towards the crowd of people.

I intentionally held my ground (usually with as much pressure as he used on me I would have played human and at least staggered back, but the comment about being young ticked me off and I was aiming to surprise him a little.


End file.
